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Who Are Your Teachers, Pt 2: Who They Are Not

In an earlier post I suggested that looking at it honestly you should probably expand your definition of who your teachers are. Here I would like to suggest the opposite- reigning it in. I think it is important to give credit to those training partners and students who have helped you develop and grow. At the same time, it is also important not to try to make teachers out of people you just don’t know that well. If you have been training for a while you will probably have spent some time in other peoples’ dojo, and taken a seminar or two from visiting teachers. Some of these people might even be famous, in karate circles anyway.

In Midori Kenji’s dojo in Koniya, August 1991. After training we had a nice dinner at his house. Unfortunately I spilled soup on him, Fortunately he has a sense of humor.

Take me as an example: looking just at my karate, over the years I have spent a week training one on one in a small dojo in Amami Oshima with Toguchi Seikichi. I have had dinner with Mas Oyama and trained Kyokushin with Midori Kenji. I did a seminar on Sepai with Shinjo Anyu and have visited and briefly trained in a variety of Goju dojo on Okinawa as well as around the US and Canada. I had private lessons in Okinawa Kempo from Irei Isao, and I’ve trained some in Uechi Ryu. The list could go on, but why? These have all (or mostly all) been fun things do to. I may have gleaned a little insight here or there from them. But these people are not my teachers. I was friends with Midori Kenji and we trained some but I have no mastery of the Kyokushin of that time or his Shinkyokushin now. I was never a member of the Shoreikan, never a part of the Jundokan, and am not a Uechi or Okinawa Kempo yudansha. A few hours in a seminar hall, a visit to a dojo, a weekend training intensely or a friendship that includes some training cannot, does not, make someone your teacher. I have no right to claim any real connection to, or knowledge of, these people or their arts, and I do not.

While I visited many times I can’t really claim Matayoshi sensei was my teacher. But who recognizes the fellow on the left, 26 years ago…

But look around the net and you often see long lists of teachers under people’s names. Everyone they ever visited, it seems! They certainly did not have time to actually train with all these people. It is kind of a shame, really. In some ways it belittles the teacher-student relationship. It takes a long time to get to know someone. To be your teacher someone needs to know you, your personality, your strengths and weaknesses. If they do not, how can they shape their instruction, help guide you in your training? If you think that a few insights make a teacher, or that you can teach well in a standardized manner, you might think that a brief visit is enough. But it isn’t. You can learn a kind of shallow martial art that way, but you will be missing out on the real content. You will be missing the part where your teacher challenges you to face the deepest rooted problems in your art, the little but important pieces he or she only knows you are ready for but missing because they know you and how you train. The places where they push you in ways you didn’t know you needed to go. You might think you are getting something great from a short meeting, but unfortunately that may really just show how shallow your experience, or your relationship with your teacher, is. You are still missing the real content because that requires more understanding of where you are than any teacher can get in a short time.

It is not much, but a birthday cake is always appreciated.

And by thinking the teacher-student relationship can be so transitory you will also be missing the other real content, the development of a lasting relationship that is based as much in what you are doing for your teacher as what they are doing for you. Give and take, not one way, not just taking and learning but giving something in return. It is important. And if you can’t imagine doing anything for your teacher? I would really suggest taking a closer look. If they are your teacher they have been working hard for you and you really should do the same for them. If you have not, if that idea seems foreign instead of normal, you either need to take a closer look at yourself, or you might not really have a teacher at all. So to finish I’ll ask you: who are your teachers, and what have you done for them lately?